Anakin: You call this a diplomatic solution?

Padmé: No, I call it aggressive negotiations. – Dialogue from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

The Figure

Padmé Amidala was a courageous, hopeful leader, serving as Queen and then Senator of Naboo – and was also handy with a blaster. Despite her ideals and all she did for the cause of peace, her secret, forbidden marriage to Jedi Anakin Skywalker would prove to have dire consequences for the galaxy. – Hasbro packaging blurb, Star Wars The Black Series: Padmé  Amidala

In February of 2019, the Rhode Island-based toy company Hasbro started shipping its 20^th wave of Star Wars The Black Series action figures with an assortment that included Padmé  Amidala, Battle Droid, Vice Admiral Holdo, Dryden Vos, Mace Windu, and Han Solo (Mimban Mud Trooper). Based on iconic characters from several Star Wars feature films (including Attack of the Clones, The Last Jedi, Solo, and The Phantom Menace), these six-inch scale action figures feature authentic details and fully-articulated limbs that make them prized collectibles by young fans and adult collectors alike.

Padmé Amidala is the 81^st action figure in the Star Wars The Black Series collection – a line Hasbro introduced eight years ago. She is a new sculpt and not a reissue of an earlier release of The Black Series run, and she represents the former Queen (and now Senator) from Naboo played by Natalie Portman as she appears shortly before the First Battle of Geonosis, the opening engagement in the Clone Wars that is the climax of 2002’s Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

What’s in the Box?

Padmé Amidala, like most figures in the pre-2020 Star Wars The Black Series, comes in a black-red box that contains a figure sculpted and painted to resemble Padmé  in her functional, non-regal white outfit and cape that is intended to sartorially connect Padmé to her daughter Princess Leia Organa, her Original Trilogy counterpart.

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Star Wars movie-inspired design – fans and collectors can imagine scenes from the Star Wars Galaxy and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones with this premium Padmé  Amidala figure, inspired by the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, part of the Star Wars movie franchise that includes Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story. The Star Wars Galaxy includes beloved and feared characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader, as well as Stormtroopers, Droids, and more! – Hasbro promotional blurb

Padmé Amidala is sculpted and painted to portray the intrepid young Senator as she appears in the scenes that lead to her capture – along with her Jedi protector Anakin Skywalker – by Geonosian soldier drones commanded by Archduke Poggle the Lesser on the arid desert world where the Separatists led by the evil Count Dooku have established a secret arms-and-battle droid factory.

Here, Padmé Amidala is clad in a practical two-piece white bodysuit and a matching cape (the only article of clothing that is made of real fabric here), accessorized with a gray utility belt that includes a holster on her right side for her small Naboo-designed hand blaster, a metal armband on each arm that symbolizes her political service as Naboo’s representative in the Galactic Senate, and light shin guard armor over her white action boots.

Movie-based character-inspired accessories – this Star Wars The Black Series action figure includes 3 Padmé Amidala-inspired accessories that make a great addition to any Star Wars The Black Series collection. Kids and fans alike can appreciate the courageous leader, Inspired by the character from the Star Wars Galaxy. – Hasbro promotional blurb

Padmé Amidala comes with the following accessories:

• Cape
• 2x Right Hands
• Battle Droid Blaster
• Blaster Pistol

As noted above, Hasbro gives this figure interchangeable right hands so that she can hold the Battle Droid Blaster better with a hand that is custom-made for this task. Also, note that this figure only shows Padmé before her encounter with the creature known as the nexu, the vaguely feline (and menacing) arena beast that slashes Padmé’s back with its long, sharp claws. (No bare midriff in this figure, Padmé  fans!)

Both weapons – the small and elegant blaster pistol and the larger, clumsier-looking Battle Droid blaster – are nicely detailed and are painted to look like the props used in writer-director George Lucas’s Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Padmé’s Naboo blaster is streamlined so it can be easily concealed in almost any of the former queen’s outfits and features a silvery Naboo-style chrome finish. The larger weapon is more menacing and mostly-black with some parts given a metal-gray finish.

As I mentioned earlier, Padmé Amidala comes with a removable white cape that is made of gray-white fabric. The character wears a similar outfit in her appearance in 2008’s animated feature film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

My Take

 I started collecting Star Wars The Black Series action figures after I received the collection’s Star Wars 40^th Anniversary Legacy Pack with Darth Vader set as a Christmas gift in 2017, along with several other Star Wars The Black Series items, including two of the Centerpiece figures and the X-34 Landspeeder with Luke Skywalker vehicle.

Because I was more or less “adopted” into a new family after my mother died in 2015 and moved into a house that is not fully my own, I don’t have a lot of room in which I can store, much less display, a large collection, so I thought I’d only buy the other 11 action figures to complete “the original 12 figures” set for the display stand.  I don’t remember what I planned to do with the X-34 Landspeeder with Luke Skywalker; maybe I was going to display that vehicle-and-figure set on a floating shelf in my original room, which was far larger than the room I ended up living in.

That scheme didn’t go so well, though; first the Caregiver started gifting me more figures for my birthday and Christmas, and then I started getting either the The Empire Strikes Back 40^th Anniversary figures or random ones – such as General Grievous from Revenge of the Sith or Tobias Beckett from Solo: A Star Wars Story.

I bought Padmé Amidala at the same time that I bought Anakin Skywalker (Padawan). My reasoning: I tend to focus rather myopically on the Original and Sequel Trilogies when it comes to collecting, with only one character from The Phantom Menace (Jar Jar Binks) and one from Revenge of the Sith (the aforementioned General Grievous) in the mix. And since I have quite a few figures based on Luke Skywalker and his twin sister Leia, I figured it would be fitting if I added their ill-fated parents to my Star Wars The Black Series collection.

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As I wrote earlier, this is not a reissue of a previously released Star Wars The Black Series six-inch action figure with new and improved sculpts. This is a new sculpt, and although it does not look perfectly like the beautiful and talented Natalie Portman’s character from Attack of the Clones, it does come close.

PREMIUM ARTICULATION AND DETAILING: Star Wars fans and collectors can display this highly poseable (4 fully articulated limbs) figure, featuring premium deco, in their action figure and vehicle collection. – Hasbro product description on its official website

Overall, I have no complaints about Padmé Amidala; the figure is well-designed and can represent the character as she appeared in the early sections of Attack of the Clones’ Geonosis action scenes. The suit’s top is not torn yet, so fans who want to pose the figure in her “escape from the arena” look (when she has that nasty-looking nexu claw scratch on her back and shows a little bare midriff) will have to wait till Hasbro releases a “Geonosis Arena” variant.

Padmé Amidala, like most of the figures in Hasbro’s eight-year-old Star Wars The Black Series reflects the company’s efforts to make action figures that are fun for kids to play with but also have authentic-looking detailing and movie-accurate “deco” that appeals to older collectors.

Following trends that began in the early 2000s with Hasbro’s various Star Wars lines of 3.75-inch scale figures (including ones for the original iteration of Star Wars The Black Series), this figure has more points of articulation – or POAs –  (12) than Kenner’s original Star Wars figures (except, of course, for Kenner’s 12-inch action figures, which had more POAs than the more numerous 3.75-inch figures, which only had, at most, five points of articulation).  

This is another reason why many adult collectors – such as this reviewer – like Star Wars The Black Series action figures, especially the larger six-inch scale ones. POAs are analogous to the human body’s ball-and-socket and swivel joints and allow fans – young and old – to pose their figures in more life-like stances than you could ever do with their Kenner counterparts from the early days of the Star Wars saga. (You can see this in the Hasbro promo photos in this review.)

I also like how Hasbro depicts Padmé in this figure. Not only does she look elegant yet ready to defend herself with a blaster, but the designers gave her a neutral facial expression rather than – as was the norm in the past – a perpetually sunny smile. Kenner gave the original 12-inch Princess Leia dolls that bland, Barbie-like smile, and that detail influenced my decision back in the late 1970s to never add one of those larger figures to my collection. Neutral expressions just work better in Star Wars-based figures, and Hasbro sometimes includes – as it did with its Emperor Palpatine with Throne last year – an extra interchangeable head with a different expression sculpted onto its face for characters whose extreme emotions warrant it.  

Suffice it to say, though, that this Padmé Amidala figure looks simply fine the way she is. There are no painfully obvious flaws in the sculpt or the paint job, especially in the hair and face areas of the figure’s head. The facial features resemble those of Academy Award-winning Natalie Portman. Not perfectly, mind you, but they do come close.

All in all, this Padmé Amidala from 2019 is a well-made action figure that will make a fine addition to any Star Wars fan’s collection.

Well, this brings us to the end of my review of a new-to-me Star Wars The Black Series collectible. I had fun writing it, and I hope you will find it both enjoyable and informative.

Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and find joy in even the small things in life. And remember, the Force will be with you…always. 

Miscellaneous

Manufacturer: Hasbro
Source Film or TV Series:  Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Year of Figure’s Release: 2019
Original Retail: $19.99
Product Number: E4081/B3834
UPC Number: 6 30509 77983 3